Tonight, I really needed to get honest with Jesus. So I read some scripture (Elihu’s speeches and the beginning of God addressing Job). And I was about to go to my journal with my 2 pens
I loosely follow the method that Mark Virkler teaches, of two way journaling. I just use pens with different colors of ink so that I can more clearly identify when I am pouring out my heart (Ps 62:8) and when I am listening for His communication.
I had the feeling that this was going to be messy. I feel weak. I was given the results of about 6 days of heart monitoring (atrial fibrillation 95% of the time). I am in pain a lot, because of a catheter that I have worn for close to 6 months, and TURP surgery is still 7 weeks away. And I have delayed my retirement by a couple of months.
It is not that the Lord hasn’t brought any good news that I can recognize into my life in the last week, I found a small retirement plan that I didn’t know that I had, so that will keep me in the house that I am renting (hopefully for a few months after I retire, and when I hopefully will have regained enough strength to do some serious downsizing.)
But, as with my previous post, my identity is that I am profoundly ignorant. But, I also know that God has promised to make my life like a sunset, beautiful, inspiring awe. So, can I understand what the next couple of month, the surgery, or retirement will really look like. Honestly, no.
So pouring out my heart to God, may have a fair amount of discouragement in it. There will probably be some complaining. There will be some deep sadness over prayers that haven’t been answered yet. There could be challenges coming back at me that I need to ask Him for a hesed church community. And, for all that I know, the church where I fellowship now may have a hesed community, and I am just so inept, and profoundly ignorant relationally, that I just don’t see it.
Is some of this spiritual warfare? I would say so. Am I sick and tired of spiritual warfare? Even there, the answer is yes and no. There are some really big spiritual nuts that I would love for Him to crack. The nuts crack me more than We crack them it seems. But, there are the times where I see Him in the spiritual warfare, and then I am not sick of it for a while. I love to see Him bringing freedom. *Note: I get lifted when I see His freedom work freedom “from” <fill in the blank of bad things>, but I get even more lifted when I see His freedom work freedom for <fill in the blank for kingdom living, including the fruit of the Spirit>
And I will take you on some musical adventures, just because this time, His communication is reminding me of some songs. The way that I feel about spiritual warfare sometimes is contained in 2 songs by Mickey & Becki Moore – The Guitar Song (which they introduce as the New York City gospel song), and the Guitar Song Sequel.
But the way that the Lord encourages me in the midst of spiritual warfare, has a lot of Ellie Holcomb’s “Find You Here” song. Pay attention to the piece that starts 132 seconds in (Link takes you right there). I am so glad that she had the courage to sing about finding Jesus “Here in the middle of the losing fight”. Been there. Done that. They were out of T-shirts.
I went looking for “Need You Now” as well. And I found 2 songs, one by Lady A, and one by Plumb. I can relate to both, though one is turning to God, and the other is turning to a relationship. It was was the one by Plumb, that the Lord did something unexpected. The unofficial lyric video hit me hard. It was what I needed to pour out to God. But, I also sometimes have trouble sleeping, especially getting back to sleep, which is its own form of spiritual warfare. And Plumb’s rendition, is a little to hard driving for a playlist to help me remember Who He is, and what He invites me to when I have a hard time falling back to sleep. So I went looking for covers. I found 2 on facebook, one is at a church service, and the other is by a sweet young girl , Ashlyn Danielle. The sweet young girl, also brought me to tears, and I wondered if I could help her put that up on Apple Music.
I will leave you with Desert Road by Casting Crowns. I will take up the topic again tomorrow in Part 2, where I talk about exploring with Him why I don’t want to talk to Him. I expect bluntness and love on both sides.
Postscript: As I was adding Tags, I looked for a male vocalist doing a cover of Plumb’s Need You Now on YouTube and saw in the right navigation “Homeless Girl Playing ‘Ring of Fire’ on a Broken Guitar — Johnny Cash Stopped and Sat Beside Her”. The AI symbol came up when I navigateed to it. It is a good story. I wasn’t sure if the story, or just the artwork was AI generated, so I looked. at what was in the description. It mentioned the girl’s name in the story, and in the description. So I went to the iTunes Store, and found the Amy Sulllivan that was mentioned. A Christian artist, with only 5 songs to her credit. I bought the 5 songs. But something still bothered me about the AI. So with Google Gemini, I asked “Did johnny cash really stop for amy sullivan?” Nope. Historical fiction. Fable. Going back to YouTube, I saw at the very end of the description. “Legal Disclaimer: This channel does not contain documentaries. All scenes, dialogue, and stories in this content, inspired by the life of Johnny Cash, are purely fictional.”
But, on balance, though I was disappointed about being taken in by a story, I am actually more curious about the songs that I bought from someone really named (possibly stage named) Amy Sullivan, and what the Lord might do with them.
